I know he is polarizing and there are several thread disparaging him, I dont mean to do that here. I just read Brian Kelly's departing message to the LSU community, how much it meant to his family and so on. Napier did the same thing. I know these "thank you" notes have become trivial....like when recruits send these sappy decommitment messages, but does anyone find it odd that we've seen nothing from Franklin? He ran to college gameday, but nothing to the fans and school. Of course he had his detractors, like all fired coaches, but....nothing?
No departing message from Franklin?
- Thread starter Ram20
- Start date
He ran on to College Gameday and proceeded to tell everyone he was going elsewhere to win a national championship... lmfao...
Screw him. After losing to Oregon, UCLA and Northwestern, he had no plan at all to right the ship. He lost to Northwestern at home. Let that sink in. He couldn't get those players fired up enough to beat them.
James seems to me like someone who is going to be bitter for a long time. He had very thin skin. I remember after 2016 he would occasionally bring up the “fire franklin” chants as a way of sticking it to people. What he did was indicate that it really bothered him and it was easily resurrected when things went south again
If I had had family members harassed by fans, I wouldn’t feel like sending out a warm and fuzzy message either
He just struck me as somebody who could pose as different characters. The underdog coach able to get his team fired up to play a better opponent. The statesman able to talk up the right way of doing things. Unfortunately, the one character he couldn’t play was the guy leading a team expected to at least compete for a national championship. It sat too heavily on his shoulders and he didn’t know how to act the part. When he needed to actually be the part and not play it, he wasn’t capable.
I‘m not surprised he didn’t send a “farewell” message.
It's ironic that our fans love to call out other fanbases for being classless when our fans are elite in that category.
Agree. But the board must stay consistent so I expect nothing but support for him wherever he goes and openly rooting for him to do better than whomever we hire. That’s how it works here.
His farewell post was, no farewell post, respect my decision. 
Honestly...does it matter?
He's bitter...right or wrong...and doesn't owe anyone other than the kids he recruited a message. He was just a coach.
The Northwestern game was 3+ hours of driving around the parking lot dragging the national title trophies with a '94 Oldsmobile trying to get fired, and it worked.
So, you’ve named your price for “Sure, go ahead and be sh|tty to my family?” Wow.
You found one more reason not to like Franklin!
Let it go.
Let it go.
That happens to every major college football coach when the lose. They should understand that it comes with the territory and that it was just a small number of fans who actually harassed him.
The crazy number of “fans” who wanted him fired for years now … and would talk about “Big Game James” when we were just coming off a Natty Semi appearance … and all the JoeBots he had to deal with … he should have addressed them, looking directly into the camera on Gameday as he stood up, and told them “your new coach is going to be Deez Nutz.”
Last edited:
I think “harassed his family” is colorful language. Were some fans idiots? Probably. It happens in every fan base. If you can’t take it, stay home.
the University made his family generationally wealthy. Go cry me a river. Such a hard life.
For you, JohnjoeJumbaaubie? OK … “Poop butt eee-e-ee-ee fart doodoo.” Got it now?
You kidding me??? He went on probably the biggest platform he could go on (College Game Day), and was not only MORE than gracious, but gave us FAR more credit than we deserved. You could tell he genuinely loved the place, as did his daughters. I was amazed how well he put lipstick on the pig that was Penn State and it’s pathetic fan base.
You could tell he really wanted to win a National Championship here, and thought he was close to doing it. He almost regretfully said he guessed he would just have to do it somewhere else.
if you didn’t get from that interview that he and his girls really wanted to stay at Penn State and loved it here, you were beyond deaf.
Several good comments on this thread offering sober takes on what might be going on in Franklin's head.
It's tough to not feel bitter when you get fired from a job, regardless of the circumstances.
That said, there's overwhelming evidence that Franklin's best possible scenario (according to Franklin, himself) turned out to be an illusion, and that success under his very specific approach to football has a ceiling. It is odd to think that any truly legitimate program would consider hiring him given his track record against good opponents, his willingness to play favorites over talent, his questionable ability to recruit and develop players at key positions, his stubborn refusal to adopt a pass-first offense, inability to hold onto narrow leads late in games, etc. etc...
To me, he's a guy that a mediocre program should be looking at so that he can maybe elevate their status somewhat.
The thing is, Franklin's overarching strategy seems to be to simply spend your way to victory, and in order for that to work, you have to have a lot of pieces supporting that approach. I can't imagine he's gonna go to VaTech (or whatever) and say, "Look, I need you to drop $100 million on football," and they're gonna smack themselves in the forehead and shout, "So, THAT'S what we've been doing wrong!" and instantly rubber stamp his request.
Oh no, how will I get through today or this weekend after we saw him heap praise about PSU on national TV a week after he was already fired. I swear this country literally just believed the reality they make up in their minds. I get the one known bigot on this site who came out from his rock still hating on the guy, but the guy did some good things for PSU....it was time....maybe some of the other folks can get over it without trying to invent dumb BS.
Coaches will get fired a lot more frequently with PSU moving forward so don't grow so attached any of them....even if they played or coached with Joe. You have a 2-3 year leash now....welcome to what the rest of college football has been in for decades now. Hope the next guy gets PSU over the top, but the odds are that won't happen so be prepared to hate that next guy too in time.
Coaches will get fired a lot more frequently with PSU moving forward so don't grow so attached any of them....even if they played or coached with Joe. You have a 2-3 year leash now....welcome to what the rest of college football has been in for decades now. Hope the next guy gets PSU over the top, but the odds are that won't happen so be prepared to hate that next guy too in time.
Last edited:
I bet that bigot you are talking about is the racist POS that posted about Mike Tomlin being taken to the top of a tall building and tossed over the edge!
Petty look from Franklin. Wake up for him will be if he ends up at a place without the infrastructure to hide his poor decision making year after year.
He should have thanked the fans and the school. It has to be done, no question about it. Its standard protocol, no matter what the circumstances. Its the professional thing to do. He didn't follow the standard professional protocol. That says something about him.
I think they wanted Franklin out and he knew it. Had he stayed and righted the ship they wouldn't have had a reason to fire him. I suspect there is no love lost between Franklin and Kraft. So I can see someone with the hubris of Franklin being very bitter.
Yeah the players who absolutely didn’t show up to play against UCLA had no role in that loss when all their pre-season goals were still possible. Under the circumstances they should have been motivated to play if they were being coached by a Pop Warner coach.
Yeah “dead to me“ would be my thoughts. Moms would be on the warpath if some d bag threw a can at one of her boys and I’m talking about climbing into the stands type action